Op. I went threw 5 dfferent exhaust and finally am happy with the akra Evo. Buy the best and you will not be disappointed. Sound is great. No drone. Nice power gains and amazing weight savings. Trust me. Once you will buy the rear section then you will be looking for more power down the road. You will find yourself buying an xpipe.( aa hfc is great But loud) and you wil no longer be happy with the rasspiness of the exhaust sound, and daily driving will be abnouxious at times under a heavy foot. ( Unless u like the loud exhaust sound) You will find yourself sellling it eventually with a massive loss. Eventually you will end up with the akra Evo. Please find a local member with the akra Evo and listen to it prior to making a purchase.

If it is Just sound you want with no drone. Do the oem exhaust mod perf pipe replacement. It will run you $300 at your local muffler shop and the sound is on par with the MPE only a tinge louder from what I understand.

Your foot is the volume knob, and there is no drone (above stock) to note. You will not believe that you have an exhaust that sounds the same or better than a $2-4k aftermarket muffler.

damn i need to hear them in person, cuz i like the idea of the mpe but i deff eventually down the road wanna get some hfc and get more power, maybe ill have to just fall back on a akra evo, cuz in the end i deff dont want any drone at all during daily driving

Test pipes give you as good gains as HFC maybe even better. It's catless. Where in NJ are you? Feel free to come check out my setup. I'm in Wayne, East Hanover and Somerset County every day.

I went through Active Auto Werks and then went back to my custom electronic controlled system which uses the oem muffler. I can go from loud to stock in 5 seconds. You can also dial in how much sound you want. Why live with drone when you can spend 500 on this set up and have the best of both worlds? Ellwood the pug says why live with a loud exhaust when you have choices!

Switched to M Perf Rear + ACM Test Pipes.
Excellent. Perfect for this car. Much more exotic and refined sounding than previous setup. This belongs on an M3. Absolutely no drone. Keeps the BMW a BMW and test pipes add the performance.

I went through Active Auto Werks and then went back to my custom electronic controlled system which uses the oem muffler. I can go from loud to stock in 5 seconds. You can also dial in how much sound you want. Why live with drone when you can spend 500 on this set up and have the best of both worlds? Ellwood the pug says why live with a loud exhaust when you have choices!

I have one of those lying around and was contemplating picking up a 2nd for a mod like this, mounting them before the cats, however. Not so much for sound, more for power.

It's cool that there are lots of good parts choices but I ended up pulling the trigger on an MPE from a member here. It's pricey for a muffler but it seems to nail the subtle symphony of sound I'm looking for. And at some point I hope to recoup some of the cost either when I sell the car or sell the exhaust after this "last performance mod" wears thin on me and I want more perf and/or sound. Will post back once I get it on the car.

I'm not done yet, still want to try other rear sections out. Not changing the Borla catless x pipe.

Stock is still my favorite. Excellent tone. No drone. Aggressive and pretty loud for a stock car. The sound this car makes from the factory goes by unappreciated.
Modified stock rear section was excellent. Loved it. But it was basically a heavy straight pipe set up.
Rpi version 2 catless x pipe with stock rear was bad. Loud as hell. 100% rasp 100% of the time. Sounded extraordinary at WFO but was not worth the insanely painful trade off.
Recently I went for a full Borla. It makes a lot of power. Sounds great. A little bassy but worth it. Some drone until you exceed 2000 rpm. Some inherited rasp from running no primary cats, but the sound is heard more inside the car than out.
As of a few days ago I changed the rear section out to a Gintani Sport. Sounds very similar to the full Borla but a little less boom and noise. A small amount more refined. I like it so far, it seems a bit quieter and that is ok with me. Also, I like the larger tips on the Gintani much more than the Borla tips. Big difference in the look of the car.

As far as power, the full Borla and Borla/Gintani set ups make the most all around power. The rpi lost a ton of bottom end. Made top end power, but it wasn't worth it. Racecar sounds at street racer expense.
Oem modded rear muffler made no difference in hp, as it shouldn't.

It's cool that there are lots of good parts choices but I ended up pulling the trigger on an MPE from a member here. It's pricey for a muffler but it seems to nail the subtle symphony of sound I'm looking for. And at some point I hope to recoup some of the cost either when I sell the car or sell the exhaust after this "last performance mod" wears thin on me and I want more perf and/or sound. Will post back once I get it on the car.

Cheers!

Congrats on the new purchase.

To everyone else (and OP maybe), my best advice is to know before hand if you are going to play around with the primaries before you make your choice. If you know you are going to get test pipes, I'd suggest getting those first before the exhaust.

I had the ACM mod and it sounded fantastic. Added test pipes and it ended up being way too loud. By adding test pipes first, you can gauge for yourself how much volume is added.

Other suggestion is don't be scared to PM members here with questions. I learned a ton by just asking people for advice, since like the OP said, some members go through 4-5 (or 28 like one member did) exhausts.

To everyone else (and OP maybe), my best advice is to know before hand if you are going to play around with the primaries before you make your choice. If you know you are going to get test pipes, I'd suggest getting those first before the exhaust.

I had the ACM mod and it sounded fantastic. Added test pipes and it ended up being way too loud. By adding test pipes first, you can gauge for yourself how much volume is added.

Other suggestion is don't be scared to PM members here with questions. I learned a ton by just asking people for advice, since like the OP said, some members go through 4-5 (or 28 like one member did) exhausts.

Good advice. Definitely do cat mods first given they'll have a big effect on sound.

Personally, I've been through primary cat mods on past cars and already decided that I do not want to go through the hassles with emission testing for the amount of power that I'd gain in what's already a monster of a car. On a brighter note, I should have the MPE on by monday!

I just installed an MPE. Initially I was underwhelmed from inside the cabin, windows down. Too quiet. From outside, I think it sounds great - nice loudness, great sound character that's not stock yet strangely not aftermarket either. It really hits a sweet spot. The sound between 3.5K and 4.0K is really awesome! WOT is even more fun now. The engine sound is slightly amplified, as with an freer flowing exhaust, so the slight engine drone ~1.9K (present even with stock exhaust) is slightly louder but not at all an issue. Overall I'm very pleased with MPE.

I can easily see how you could go down the path of finding something that sounds good inside the cabin which effectively sounds obnoxious from outside the car and drones like hell inside. It's really weird but I'm almost bummed that I didn't take that path... going straight to MPE was almost too responsible, like skipping my teenage & college years yet ultimately the right thing for me. Even weirder is that I now understand/appreciate auto makers who are piping exhaust sound into the cabin via speakers (so long as it's the actual sound, not some pre-recorded crap). That may very well be my next "exhaust" mod... bizarre.

I'm not done yet, still want to try other rear sections out. Not changing the Borla catless x pipe.

Stock is still my favorite. Excellent tone. No drone. Aggressive and pretty loud for a stock car. The sound this car makes from the factory goes by unappreciated.
Modified stock rear section was excellent. Loved it. But it was basically a heavy straight pipe set up.
Rpi version 2 catless x pipe with stock rear was bad. Loud as hell. 100% rasp 100% of the time. Sounded extraordinary at WFO but was not worth the insanely painful trade off.
Recently I went for a full Borla. It makes a lot of power. Sounds great. A little bassy but worth it. Some drone until you exceed 2000 rpm. Some inherited rasp from running no primary cats, but the sound is heard more inside the car than out.
As of a few days ago I changed the rear section out to a Gintani Sport. Sounds very similar to the full Borla but a little less boom and noise. A small amount more refined. I like it so far, it seems a bit quieter and that is ok with me. Also, I like the larger tips on the Gintani much more than the Borla tips. Big difference in the look of the car.

As far as power, the full Borla and Borla/Gintani set ups make the most all around power. The rpi lost a ton of bottom end. Made top end power, but it wasn't worth it. Racecar sounds at street racer expense.
Oem modded rear muffler made no difference in hp, as it shouldn't.

After much debating I ended up going with AA signature exhaust, its just a tad cheaper than mpe but cost was no issue to me. Wanted to get rid of that metal dipper look that oem and mpe has and keep a nice deep v8 sound.

At idle to about 2500 rpm you have a nice deep vurmmm gurgle, will turn heads just at a stop light then when you take off they do a tripple take.
But once you get a bit of rpm up all that goes away and sounds just a weee bit louder than stock so trips or highway speed etc your cabbin is pretty much stock quiet.

Go to some get togethers and hear the options in person. Most owners are happy to demo their pipes and its fun to socialize with other M owners. Try and get the owner to take you for a spin when you hear something that sounds good. Free revs in a parking lot don't cut it and tell you nothing about drone. Again you will find most owners are happy to give you a spin or at least I have found this to be the case. Getting an exhaust you end up hating two weeks after you install it is no fun and completely unnecessary. Take the time to check out the likely suspects. You wont be sorry you got the right exhaust the first time.

After much debating I ended up going with AA signature exhaust, its just a tad cheaper than mpe but cost was no issue to me. Wanted to get rid of that metal dipper look that oem and mpe has and keep a nice deep v8 sound.

At idle to about 2500 rpm you have a nice deep vurmmm gurgle, will turn heads just at a stop light then when you take off they do a tripple take.
But once you get a bit of rpm up all that goes away and sounds just a weee bit louder than stock so trips or highway speed etc your cabbin is pretty much stock quiet.